The Wilsons

Eric

Erica

I'm a child of God, a mom to our sweet Eli, a wife to the greatest man I know, and a technical director for a flavor company. I love a good book, a long walk, camping, cooking, being outside, and, best of all, my family.

Eli

Our sweet, cheerful, energetic five year-old who loves to play outside, ride his bike, and build elaborate backyard forts. We love him to the moon and back!

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Well, cliche as it may sound, I can't believe that 2013 has come to an end! Here are a few pictures from the past couple weeks...

Eli's class Christmas party:

His class... LOVE these kids!

This picture is blurry for some reason, but this is a rare picture of Eric and me! :) We went to our favorite restaurant (Eden) for my birthday with Kelly and Phil.

SO thankful for their faithful friendship!

Eli all dressed up in his "worker gear:"

Christmas morning. That bike by the tree is my favorite thing. :) We couldn't wait to see Eli's reaction to his new, bigger bike.

This is so blurry, but I still love it. He was THRILLED. He's been asking for a bigger bike for months now! Hours and hours have already been logged riding this new bike.

We do three "tree presents" and stocking gifts. Eli's second present (after the bike) was a tether-ball. Eric had already put the pole in the backyard (which Eli thought was an oddly-placed fence post), so we were able to play on Christmas morning!

Last tree gift: a crossbow (that shoots rubber darts, of course)! This was probably the biggest hit.

One of Eric's gifts was tickets for us to go to a Sidekicks (Dallas' professional indoor soccer team) game. Eli was just as happy as Eric was. :)

Stocking time! (my favorite part!)

We had a really, really nice Christmas. After our little family time, we headed over to my parents' house for brunch and more gift-opening. It is a blast watching all the kids open gifts and then play with them all together. And after that we all just hung around and played before making a big Christmas dinner together. It was a relaxing, fun, memorable day- just perfect!

Every year at the end of December I try to think back over the year, evaluating the good things and the bad things, how we've grown and developed as a family, areas that I've seen the Lord work in my life, and the (MANY) areas where God has shown me I need to change. Overwhelmingly, we have seen the Lord's guidance and care in our lives this year. He answered some big prayers, gave us some really fun memories, worked in each of our hearts, and eased us so faithfully through our big transition to Eli going to school and me going back to work full time. We look back on 2013 with gratitude and pray that the lessons we have learned of God's faithfulness sink deep into our hearts. And we look forward to 2014 with anticipation, asking the Lord to continue to mold us into His image as individuals and as a family.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

We had a crazy ice/sleet storm a couple weeks ago! But, of course, NOTHING stops Eli and Timothy from playing outside! They were all bundled up, chipping ice off of whatever they could find outside. When they finally came inside they were drenched and freezing cold, but happy! :)

I don't know why he is holding his hands like this. :)

Ice EVERYWHERE!

I love this picture of Lucy all curled up on our bed- she is doing EXACTLY what I wanted to do on the iced in days! What a tough life she leads. :)

Cookie baking with Eli:

Eli's class did a little Christmas play for chapel last week. Eli was a wise man:

Here's his whole class afterwards:

And then at church last Sunday the little kids did their Christmas play. Here are a few unruly shepherds: :)

And here's the right half of the stage. :) I couldn't get a picture of the entire group (30+ kiddos!), but they were adorable. Eli said they had a "multitude of shepherds." :) (He's on the far right, yellow head thing.)

And last but not least, a few cute pictures just because! He would NOT cooperate for a picture this day! But I love his goofy expressions. (And I just noticed that it looks like he has a bow in his hair in this one!)

Monday, December 2, 2013

DECEMBER?!? Crazy! November flew by! Here are a few pictures from the end of the month:

Eli's school did a Thanksgiving program. It was super cute!

Our little Indian:

After the program they had a lunch for all the parents and kids:

Cookie baking! (and cookie dough eating!)

It got COLD the week of Thanksgiving! (Cold by Texas standards, that is.) But that didn't thwart the usual play-outside-all-day standards of Eli and Timothy. They were bundled up and out there playing from morning till night, despite the weather.

Cat in window.

Thanksgiving Day! Eli and Daddy:

And Eli and Mommy:

Last Saturday we went to the Christmas Tree Farm with the Heinzes, as per tradition. They have a great swingset!

Hayride picture with the sun in our eyes:

The perfect tree!

Hauling it away:

I have a picture of us on this porch every year since Eli was born. I love that!